In the United States, the right to own and carry a firearm is one of our most basic freedoms, guaranteed by the Constitution. As more and more people are obtaining “concealed carry” permits that allow them to wear a firearm in a concealed manner, such as tucked into a waist-band, or hidden in a pocket, there is a growing number of people who carry a concealed weapon every time they go out in public. In addition, off-duty law enforcement personnel are required to carry concealed weapons in some jurisdictions, and active undercover or plainclothes law enforcement officers also must carry a concealed weapon.
Public areas, such as sporting arenas and airports, sometimes employ substantially effective weapons-detection methods to detect individuals that are carrying a firearm so as to prevent them from entering where people are typically unarmed and unprotected. But not every public place can implement such security measures. In the event of a rogue shooter in a public place, police are always called as soon as possible, and often other armed individuals in the immediate vicinity of the shooter will also draw their gun in an effort to protect innocent lives as well as themselves.
This presents a serious problem to law enforcement officers who arrive on the scene with little knowledge of who is legitimately carrying a firearm and using it for lawful purposes, and who is using a firearm in a manner that poses a threat. While law enforcement professionals are trained to discern threatening individuals from nonthreatening individuals, deadly accidents can easily occur when there are multiple armed individuals on a scene, regardless of whether they make their intentions known to police on the scene. Thus, it is possible for a well-intended, legitimately-armed individual to be mistaken as a threat to responding police officers.